style="font-size:15px;"> Draped over Sam’s arm, the fat, yellow feline turned to stare at her. He wore a smirk remarkably like the Cheshire Cat mask one of her fellow dancers wore in the ballet.
“We call him Bonkers,” Sam explained, “because normally he’s very sedate, but every once in a while—”
“He just goes bonkers,” Cheryl finished. “I get it.” She studied the man who held the cat and said, “This tendency runs in the family?”
His grin widened. “Occasionally.”
Cheryl massaged her foot. “I was down to only one good foot and now that’s full of claw marks.”
Sam turned instantly contrite. “Did he hurt you? Bonkers is usually careful not to break the skin. Let me take a look.”
“No. I’m fine.” She pointed toward the door. “Take the menace and leave.”
With a brief salute, Sam did as he was told, taking the cat with him. Cheryl watched the door close, then flopped back and stared at the ceiling fan over the bed.
What was it about Sam Hardin that she found so attractive? They’d met under dramatic circumstances, that could be part of it. She admitted he was good-looking in a rugged sort of way. He was also kind and funny, but it was something more that. Something she couldn’t put her finger on, something she didn’t want to examine too closely.
In the end, she decided it was a combination of too much excitement and the strong pain pills. Knowing that she would feel more like her old, sensible self in the morning, she crawled under the thick quilt and settled in. For a while, the painful throbbing in her foot kept sleep at bay, but soon the pain pills did their work, and she drifted off.
Sam fed the cat and retreated to the guestroom downstairs. As he lay in the unfamiliar bed, sleep eluded him, and he spent a long time staring at the ceiling. She was sleeping above him.
He berated himself for acting like a fool, but it didn’t help. The woman was dangerous to his peace of mind. Why did she have to be the first one to interest him since Natalie? Why did it have to be a woman who belonged somewhere else?
Come on, Sam, you’re thirty-three years old. You’re not some kid. You’ve been there—done that. You don’t need her kind of trouble no matter how attractive she is.
He punched his pillow into shape for the tenth time. This was nothing more than the excitement of the night. After all, it wasn’t as if he made a habit of rescuing beautiful, intriguing women. Tomorrow he’d drive her to Kansas City and deposit her with her dancing friends, and that would be the end of it.
The sound of the wind finally lulled him to sleep, but Cheryl’s face played in and out of his dreams leaving him feeling restless. In the morning, he woke feeling anything but refreshed. He climbed out of bed, dressed and went out to work off his sour mood with chores and shoveling snow.
An incessant ringing woke Cheryl from her drug-induced sleep. She fumbled for the phone on her bedside stand without opening her eyes.
“Hello?” she mumbled into the receiver with her face still pressed into the pillow.
Silence answered her. She tried again a little louder. “Hello?”
“Is Sam there?” a sharp, feminine voice asked.
“Ah—Sam who?” Cheryl muttered, wishing she could just go back to sleep.
“Samuel Hardin. My son.”
Cheryl’s eyes snapped open. Quickly, she took in the unfamiliar room. In a flash, memory returned.
“Let me speak to Samuel. This is his mother, Eleanor Hardin,” the demanding voice hammered in Cheryl’s ear.
It was her! Cheryl sat up with her heart lodged in her throat.
Chapter Four
Cheryl ran a hand through her tangled hair and winced when she hit the bump on her temple. Sam’s mother was Eleanor Hardin—former principal of Herington Junior High—and one person who was sure to recognize Cheryl Steele as Cheryl Thatcher.
“You must have the wrong number.” Cheryl tried to stay calm.
“Really?” came the unamused reply. “It’s rather hard to misdial a number on speed dial, don’t you think?”
“Oh, you mean Sam. I’m sorry. I’m still a bit groggy from the drugs he gave me.”
“Drugs?” His mother’s voice shot up an octave.
“Oh—not those kind of drugs.”
“Exactly where is my son?”
“I’m not sure. He said something about staying in the guestroom.”
“I’m relieved to hear that, at least. Have him call me right away. I don’t believe I caught your name.”
Cheryl relaxed a tiny bit. Thanks to her acquired New York accent or plain good luck, Sam’s mother hadn’t recognized her voice.
“It’s Cheri,” she replied cautiously. It wasn’t actually a lie. Some of her friends called her that.
“Thank you, Cheri. Have Sam call me.”
The line went dead in Cheryl’s hand. She stared at the phone stupidly for a second, then hung up.
Things were rapidly moving from bad to worse. Cheryl had spent too many hours facing Eleanor Hardin across the principal’s desk at school for the woman not to recognize her. Those memories were painful to recall, but not as painful as the memory of Mrs. Hardin’s testimony before the judge at Cheryl’s juvenile hearing. Eleanor had read Cheryl’s own words to the judge. Words from a diary that detailed a troubled girl’s desire to lash out at others and to gloat about the crimes she’d gotten away with. Those words had been enough to send Cheryl to a juvenile detention center for nine months.
If only she hadn’t written those things. If only Angie hadn’t found the diary and taken it to school. If only the book hadn’t ended up in Mrs. Hardin’s hands. For Cheryl, having her private thoughts exposed to others had been bad enough, but knowing her words had helped send her father and brother to prison had been almost more than she could bear. She didn’t want to relive any part of those times.
Snatching up the phone again, she dialed information for the number of the Highway Patrol. She had to find out if the roads were open. She had to get out of here.
Sam entered the front door feeling pleased with himself. He’d fed the stock, the stalls were mucked out and he’d found an old pair of crutches in the toolshed where he kept the snow shovels. He carried them into the house like a trophy. The aroma of fresh coffee greeted him.
New York was in the kitchen. She’d traded in his sweats for her red sweater and black corduroy pants with one leg slit up to the knee. She looked as if she’d slept better than he had.
She was buttering a piece of toast as the coffeemaker sputtered the last drops of coffee into the pot. He glanced around and realized she’d washed the dishes he’d
